


Legends

by out_there



Category: Smallville
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-02-26
Updated: 2003-02-26
Packaged: 2017-10-11 20:01:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/116502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/out_there/pseuds/out_there
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lex had said that their friendship would be legendary.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Legends

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Anne for a good deal of hand-holding, and asking me to explain ideas, when they just popped up out of nowhere. Also, thanks for tracking down my stray tenses. (They're nasty, and are hard to follow.)

Legendary. Lex had said that their friendship would be legendary. Technically, Lex had said that their friendship would be the stuff of legend, hadn't he? Clark supposed that they pretty much meant the same thing. Something epic. Something well-known across the lands.

He couldn't help smiling at that thought. Considering the size of Smallville, it was a given that everyone would know of their friendship. Combine a small town and a rich family, and anything Lex did would immediately become gossip. His mom always swore that Smallville gossip was the rural version of the Inquisitor; both got the story circulated the day it happened, and both were just as likely to get the story wrong. But gossip wasn't the same as legend. If it was, the everyday disasters of high school wouldn't be forgotten within a month.

Generally, Clark spent his hours in the loft either stargazing or Lana-gazing, which used to be a hobby in its own right. He certainly didn't sit around trying to define comments made in passing by friends, trying to work out exactly what Lex had meant. Or he hadn't, until Lex had come along at sixty miles an hour.

Since then, his telescope had been stared at, not stared through, and the hours would be spent thinking things through. He knew that this new introspection wasn't all about Lex, per se. It was just that Lex's arrival had brought a lot of other changes into his life; so all thoughts eventually brought him back to Lex. To how Lex had acted, how he'd looked, what he'd said. Even if the 'legendary' phrase in question had just been a passing comment weeks ago, after another bout of Smallville strangeness and another group of lies.

And these days, Clark was telling groups of lies. There were too many to count individually, so he grouped them together like some strange algebraic set. Some groups were partly truth (I shouldn't have been able to pull you up at all; it must have been adrenalin), some that were merely polite (I didn't want to pry) and some that were necessary (I'd be dead if you'd hit me; of course I'm normal). He could group them by the amount of truth they contained, by his intention in telling them, or by what kind of weirdness had caused them, but generally they all belonged in the group of lies he shouldn't have told. Lies he shouldn't have had to tell.

That was where it got confusing. Lies started to spread, like milk spilt across the table, and they soaked into everything around them. They became too easy, and if they were this easy, everyone could do it. Everyone would.

Clark has lost where the lies start and stop. Where not saying something becomes lying about it. People do it all the time; just a quick avoidance of eye contact and a change of subject. Clark does it when his parents ask about Lex. He's heard the hints, and as old-fashioned as it sounds, his parents are suspicious of Lex's intentions towards him.

His dad doesn't believe a Luthor is capable of friendship. Luthors can't be trusted and must be watched twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. The apple never falls far from the tree. His mom acts as if Lex is just a confused kid with too many opportunities for mischief. She worries about Lex, and seems to think Lex doesn't know what he's doing; that he means well but the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Clark's certain that both of his parents are wrong. Mostly wrong, at least, but he's suspected for a while that a lot of Lex's actions are purely for show, to give a certain impression or to find out what someone else knows. Clark knows that Lex watches for an advantage, for that extra piece of information, whether or not you wanted him to know it.

And that's where it gets complicated.

If Lex has done and said things to create an effect, not because he meant them, Clark doesn't know how to tell which parts are true. He's tried to work out if Lex's so-called "intentions" are honest. If Lex honestly wants friendship or something more, if that something more is just a truth that Clark can't share, or just a place in a legend.

And Clark still doesn't know what Lex meant by legendary.

Both the bogeyman and Mr Walman's prize pig are legendary but Clark doubts that Lex was thinking of their friendship in those terms. Romeo and Juliet are legendary. So are heroic quests, filled with tales of gods, villains and heroes. Stories of death and glory, all complicated tales of human triumph in one form or another. Clark doesn't want a friendship like that, always rushing from one disaster to another. He's saved Lex's life enough times already, and he'd be perfectly happy if he never had to do it again.

Clark doesn't want to live with a legend hanging above his head, with everyone knowing the story of his life the way that everyone knows of Luthorcorp and Lionel Luthor. He sees how Lex tries to live up to the Luthor name, how it drags Lex down, and he hates it.

Clark wants something... uncomplicated. Something completely unrelated to legends and destiny. He wants to be a teenager with a crush, not someone who has to constantly lie, and constantly wonder how honest everyone else is being. Clark wants it to be simple and easy, and unspoken.

He wants Lex to walk up the barn stairs, in expensive shoes that never seem to make quite enough noise, with black suit rumpled and pale shirt partly unbuttoned. For Lex to just sit beside him in the shadows, or stand and wrap an arm around him, in silence. To forget about thinking and worrying, and just feel that strange mixture of contentment and apprehension that being around Lex always causes. But Clark's known for a long time that he can't always get what he wants, no matter how hard he wishes for it. Lex is a man of extremes, which should be frightening but is charming in its own way. If Lex loved someone, he would be utterly devoted to them. He'd protect them from the world. But he'd expect the same absolute loyalty back, which means all of Clark's secrets. None of his lies and all of his trust.

Lex isn't a fifteen year old kid who'd be content with hand-holding. Lex doesn't like things to be unknown and unspecified. Everything has to be defined, dissected and noted in black and white. Any venture is either a success or a failure, and any action is either a game or a war. Every person is either for Lex or against him, on the side of angels or the devil. And Lex will be great, either in darkness or in light. But either way, it will be definite and absolute.

Clark wants something uncomplicated, but Lex is complicated. Clark doesn't want to become part of a legend, but Lex will be Legendary, with a capital 'L', whether Clark himself wants to be legendary or not. So Clark spends hours analysing passing comments, trying to work out what he wants most, and what would be harder. Losing Lex or living the legend.


End file.
